The Brand-name Game

In Back-to-school Shopping, Labels Are Winning The Cost Vs. Labels War

August 23, 2006|By JANICE PODSADA; Courant Staff Writer

When it comes to back-to-school shopping, snaring the right brand is almost as important as finding a bargain, said Eleanor Healey, the mother of two children.

``You don't want to get it wrong,'' said Healey, clutching a list of supplies provided by her son's school, Webster Hill Elementary in West Hartford.

Some items on the list are specific, she said, even recommending which brand of markers -- Crayola -- and pencils to buy.

``They have to be No. 2 yellow Ticonderoga pencils,'' said Healey, 39, as she steered a shopping cart through the Staples store in West Hartford, her 4-year-old daughter, Zoe, in tow. Staples Inc. is an office supply retailer based in Framingham, Mass.

Healey said the school's brand recommendations are helpful.

``I am always really conscious that kids don't want to stand out, so I stick to the list. You don't want to be the kid with the sparkly pencils.''

According to some analysts, parents are paying more attention to brand names when they go back-to-school shopping, even as they try to cut costs.

The age-old conflict between parents and children over brand-name purchases has been on the wane for the last five years, said Tom Julian, a retail trend analyst at McCann-Erickson, a New York-based advertising agency.

``There is more of an exchange and learning today vs. a hostility between parents and children over brands. I think now parents are more contemporary, they embrace their children's brand preferences,'' Julian said.

Price, however, is still a major consideration, he added, and probably more so this year with increased gas prices.

Some public schools are naming names, even suggesting which brand of pencils, markers and calculators parents and students should purchase.

School officials in West Hartford say they will sometimes recommend a brand-name item based on its perceived quality and a desire for classroom standardization, which can make some tasks, from writing to calculating, easier.

For instance, a team of first-grade teachers at Webster Hill Elementary recommended Ticonderoga brand pencils because they are durable, said Barbara Peck the school's principal.

``Teachers sharpen the children's pencils at the end of the day,'' Peck said. ``When they specify a particular brand, it's because that brand doesn't get chewed up in our pencil sharpeners.''

As for specifying Crayola crayons and markers, Peck characterized the brand as a widely recognized name for a crayon.

``We're not getting any kickbacks from any company,'' Peck said.

While crayons and pencils are generally low-cost items, graphing calculators can cost more than $100, depending on the make and model. Hartford public schools and West Hartford public schools use Texas Instruments calculators.

Uniformity is the rationale behind the use of a particular brand,'' said Karen List, assistant superintendent of instruction and curriculum for West Hartford schools. ``You want to have things that are uniform, you want to have instructional materials that are the same. When you're teaching new concepts, you don't want to teach it three different ways based on the type of calculator.''

Students in upper-level math classes at Conard High School typically use Texas Instruments graphing calculators, Paul Vicinus said in an e-mail. Vicinus, a math supervisor with the West Hartford school system, oversees math departments at Conard High School, Sedgwick Middle School and Bristow Middle School. The calculators are issued at no cost to any student needing one, he said. But some students choose to purchase their own.

``When asked, I will recommend a model of calculator within a specific brand based on the features available,'' Vicinus wrote. ``In terms of recommendations, we do not specifically promote one brand over another. It is a reality however, that we make use of the [Texas Instruments] products in the school and those are the calculators teachers will be most familiar with.''

It's expected that back-to-school shoppers will spend about $3.8 billion on electronic equipment this year, $1.5 billion more than last year.

Consumers are expected to spend $17.6 billion this year on back-to-school items, compared with the $13.4 billion they spent in 2005, according to the National Retail Federation, a Washington--based retail trade association. It's estimated that the average family will spend $527 this year, up from the $444 spent last year. The additional amount will pay for everything from crayons to backpacks, but the biggest increase is expected to come from the sale of electronics and clothing.

``Purchases for back-to-school are more than just pens and papers,'' said Kathy Grannis, a spokeswoman for the retail trade association. ``Back-to-school includes cameras and iPods -- those are the more expensive items.''